Plenary Lecture

Challenges of the Knowledge Society

Assoc. Professor Elissaveta Gourova
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
Bulgaria
E-mail: elis@fmi.uni-sofia.bg

Abstract: The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) development has changed the economy and society world-wide. On the one hand, it influenced new ways of working, living, doing business or entertaining. On the other, the electronic highways established bridges between people, organisations and regions in the world, shaping it like a ‘global village’. ICTs have deserved a special focus within the Lisbon Agenda of the European Union (EU) and the following initiatives for building a knowledge-based economy in Europe. A reason behind this is that ICTs have impact on the whole value-creation chain and the corresponding market structures, and their efficient use is a factor for companies success. The wide spread of ICTs in economy and society faces countries with new challenges linked to the adoption and usage of the opportunities offered by the knowledge economy for competitiveness and growth. On the one side, there are differences in the access to information highways and the information and knowledge available there. On the other, many gaps are related to the transfer of knowledge between academia and industry, and especially, for the participation of small and medium enterprises in the knowledge economy. The emerging inequalities are multifaceted and multilevel – among people, organisations and regions. Subsequently, the issues of digital divide and e-inclusion, as well as for building adequate skills for participation in the knowledge society attract the policy attention in last decades. Many measures are taken at EU and national levels for ensuring universal community services, open access, facilitating knowledge transfer and building key competences.

Brief Biography of the Speaker: Elissaveta Gourova, PhD, Assoc. Prof., Head of Masters Programme “Technologies for Knowledge and Innovation” at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. Working experience: research fellow at DG JRC-IPTS, European Commission; Head of department of Information Society at the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Previous experience: member of Horizon 2020 Advisory Group Societal Challenge 6 “Europe in a changing world- inclusive, innovative and reflective societies”, national EURAXESS coordinator, expert groups of the European Commission and of the Council of Europe in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Research experience: knowledge management, ICT, digital divide, cloud computing, open innovation, supervisor of 4 PhD students.

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